STWR - Share The World's Resources

Rather than continuing to pay off the very people who created this financial crisis, it's time to bite the bullet and start building an economic democracy featuring public banks and mutual funded holding companies, says Gary Dorrien.

Apologists for the current economic system continue to occupy Wonderland, because it is only in Wonderland that environmental problems can be solved by a blind adherence to economic growth, argue Richard York, Brett Clark, and John Bellamy Foster.

As the pursuit of material prosperity becomes increasingly unsustainable, a new vision is needed which measures a society's wealth in terms of well-being, social values and the dispersal of economic power, writes William Greider.

Current ideas for overhauling the food system have a tendency to replace complexity with checklists. Can we develop a resilient alternative to benefit all people, or will the concept of sustainability simply go to the highest bidder, asks Paul Roberts.

The root cause of the financial crisis is not to be found in hedge funds and greedy bankers, but rather in a more fundamental social problem - huge inequalites in income distribution, argues Branko Milanovic.

Eradicating famine is entirely possible if governments mobilise their political will and address the structural causes of hunger. Erroneous debts should be cancelled, and food sovereignty and agrarian reform need to be urgently promoted, argue Éric Toussaint and Damien Millet.

Governments often add a veneer of high principle to aggressive military campaigns. But can the rhetoric of human rights justify wars waged by powerful nations to universalise their political, economic and cultural paradigms? By Costas Douzinas. 

Many richer nations continue to use aid as an instrument of power rather than a tool for development. We need a new model of aid that prioritises self-sufficiency, promotes food security and encourages genuine empowerment of the poor, argues Tesfaye Habisso.  

The contentious issue of ‘land grabbing’ has become the subject of numerous media reports since the global food crisis worsened in 2008 - but what are the likely consequences of the increasing trend to secure farmland abroad? 

As ideas aimed at perfecting globalization turn into policies, progressives must boldly aspire once again to paradigms of social organization that unabashedly aim for equality. Ideas are not enough, says Walden Bello.